emmaline – 4 months old

This girl! Somewhere I blinked and she’s now 4 months old. It feels like it went by so quickly, yet it feels like she’s always been apart of our lives.

Likes:

sucking on fingers

talking. whenever possible!

eating. no surprise

having a clean diaper

being carried around and facing outward

seeing what’s going on

interacting with Rylie

being kissed on the cheek

raspberries on her tummy

being tickled

looking in the mirror

Dislikes:

not having her needs met as soon as she needs them

when Rylie is too rough with her

being set down when she wants to be walking around

Food:

Emmaline still eats quite a bit and I feel like this month it really became evident that she’s growing because girlfriend consumed so much food! It’s normal to predict each feeding to be 2 ½ – 3 hours apart. Our standard is 5oz a feeding which 90% of the time is enough to fill her up… but when that 10% kicks in, we’ll usually give her another 2 – 4oz.

We still keep formula on hand as a convenience option but if we have breastmilk in the fridge/freezer, that’s our go to. She actually prefers breastmilk over formula, which has kept me from throwing in the towel when it comes to exclusively pumping.

I’m still pumping 5 times a day (6am, 9am, 1pm, 5pm and 8:30/9pm) and even though it can be inconvenient at times, I really don’t mind doing it. I have no plans to stop any time soon, but we’ll see how it continues to go.

Sleep:

I feel like Aaron and I finally have Emmaline’s bedtime routine down – full 5oz bottle, clean diaper, clean onesie and swaddled in her new swaddles(these are perfect for her and she loves them!), and set in the bobby with her pacifier. I’m usually the one who heads up her bedtime routine and Emmaline always has a story to tell me with a huge smile on her face after she’s eaten and I’m changing her diaper and getting her dressed for bed.

Life:

Aaron was at my in-law’s house and after holding Emmaline for a few minutes, he noticed that she was covered in red splotches and was super puffy. Aaron sent me a picture, and it was obvious she was having an allergic reaction to something. Her breathing was still healthy and she seemed her usual self, so we weren’t crazy alarmed since she didn’t seem to be in pain. But we still ran through the list of differences between our home and theirs. Cats crossed our mind, but she had been there before with the cats and was fine. “Ohhh wait!” Aaron said, “I had a couple peanuts and then touched Emmaline. And I don’t think she looked this bad when I first came in.” Okay, so peanuts was our theory. Within an hour, her skin had cleared and she was looking normal again. A few days later, a bag of peanut M&M’s was open and Emmaline was nearby and the same thing happened. Her pediatrician appointment is in a few days, so we’re going to bring this up for sure! In the meantime, we’ve been asking everyone to wash their hands before handling Emmaline if they’ve had peanuts recently and I’ve been staying away from peanuts in my own food since I’m nursing and I don’t want to test and see if she has an internal reaction.

We’re really believing that Emmaline is healed though and has no allergies! We’re claiming health over our sweet girl.

The obsession continues between Rylie and Emmaline. Rylie has gotten more hands-on with Emmaline lately – wanting to hold her, feed her, play with her and dance with her (which right now looks like Rylie holding on to Emmaline’s wrists and moving them back and forth while Rylie shuffle steps/hops :P) It’s adorable.

When Rylie wants to kiss Emmaline, she makes kissy noises and won’t stop until she’s kissed her sister on the cheek.

Emmaline has warmed up to Rylie quite a bit this month too. Things that Rylie used to do doesn’t appear to bother Emmaline as much and she really only fusses when Rylie takes it too far or she needs some space.Otherwise, she really enjoys watching her older sister and will gladly accept the company sitting or laying next to her.

Me:

This month I feel like the Lord really spoke to my heart that it was okay that Aaron and I would parent Emmaline differently then we parent Rylie. I previously had firmly expressed that I would parent both of my children the same so there was a standard across the board and no child/gender got special treatment. I think I subconsciously felt like I would be compromising my own rules if I caved to raising Emmaline differently. But one day, God spoke to my heart and really gave me comfort and clarity about it. Our family’s rules and milestone privileges can remain the same across the board but that doesn’t mean everything has to be the same for every child. Each child has been uniquely created with different gifts, talents, interests and personalities. I’d be doing them a disservice if I said they all had to be squares when Rylie is a triangle and Emmaline is a circle, you know what I mean!? Anyway, this new freedom has really allowed me to love Emmaline’s uniqueness even more then I already did and we have so much fun together! It’s been fun for me to daydream about what my mother-daughter relationship will look like with Emmaline differently than it will with Rylie.

Other than that, I’m doing good. I’m thankful there is some semblance of consistency and predictability even though there are still times when Emmaline will cry and we have absolutely no idea why. We’ve been able to laugh more at her episodes too, which as greatly helped our sanity.